


this is how I say

by griners



Series: The wounds we heal and the ones we do not [1]
Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: F/M, going along as I watch this beautiful materpiece of a series, next few parts will be up as I go through the seasons!, this ship will be the end of me and i'm barely getting started
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:47:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29253909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griners/pseuds/griners
Summary: A hideous feeling of self-pity grips her in a vice, and she welcomes the worry like a fire licking her wounds. And just like that, she understands fire again. And Ressler.
Relationships: Elizabeth Keen & Donald Ressler, Elizabeth Keen/Donald Ressler
Series: The wounds we heal and the ones we do not [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2148087
Comments: 2
Kudos: 39





	this is how I say

**Author's Note:**

> So I've done it again and fell into the big huge trap that is fanfiction. This time I've gotten seriously hooked on blacklist and this PAIRING - lord help me - and will be writing about them as their relationship develops through the seasons (alas, unfortunately I already know ~~~all ze spoilers~~~ but have decided to do this anyway. call it therapy)  
> Hope you enjoy!

She has never been scared of fire before this. Has relieved the nightmares more times than she can count, has woken up screaming more often than she would like to admit and has clung to Tom a touch too desperately on multiple occasions. And yet she cooks, she starts small fires to warm the house, she lights matches and candles and shoots perfectly rounded bullets through a small barrel with a big spark.

She has never been scared of fire before this, but as she contemplates the very real chance of being melted in acid a few hours earlier, she shakes and shakes and shakes. She tries to breathe as she was taught but it seems impossible to breathe in the face of all this evil. _1,2,3 in, 1, 2, 3, 4 out_ she repeats incessantly, the numbers crumbling together in a blur of nothingness. She tries to stand and fails miserably, instead settling into the ambulance and wanting to crawl inside and lock the door and never come out. The cabin burns in front of her eyes. She can barely see.

He watches her intently, in the hard, scrutinizing way only he knows how. She idly muses that he mustn’t even know how himself, has simply done this all his life and therefore can’t force himself to stop now. Elizabeth knows what this is like – to consider deep-rooted habits that keep you alive as an asset, not something to pinpoint and get rid of. She strokes her scar absentmindedly as her breath hitches, suddenly wishing she were alone with the EMT with a closed door and one less pair of blue eyes.

It’s the fact that he didn’t like her, she eventually admits, that grazes the surface of her skin and eventually slithers its way in. She would deny it to anyone else – no person should ever be allowed to make her feel like less than what she knows she is – but she now feels like she has something to prove to everyone, not just Tom and his 4th grade class or Sam and his ever-proud warm embrace. To Ressler, none of this matters. And under his scrutiny, she often shrinks into self-doubt. She is most likely a criminal, part of a master plan Reddington has orchestrated to take down the FBI from within, or perhaps a wanted felon who has had extensive plastic surgery but has somehow forgotten to fix the slightly crooked teeth that have bothered her since she was 11. She was neither brave, nor scared, nor overwhelmed, nor a promising young agent. She was a threat, and that was that.

Until she wasn’t. It’s late and she has been in the shower for the past 45 minutes. Tom has fallen asleep and the water has run cold for what feels like hours now, and yet she scrubs, scrubs, and scrubs. Her profiling skills seem to wash away with the soap as she revisits her failed attempts at saving her own life and how close she was to letting go. Everything she learnt seemed so useless now, so meaningless compared to the terror she has been solving day after day. There was a time where getting into a criminal’s head was the most important thing in her world – right about now, she can’t see why the bullet shouldn’t enter their head first. She scrubs harder.

It’s when she finally stops the water that she notices the flash on her phone. She towels down her body and lightly blow dries her hair before touching the device, fear crippling her into submission. _What if it’s another case and another Stewmaker and what if I get taken and what if they don’t get there and what if I die what if I die what if I die_ – it buzzes again, angrier now, and she eyes the device thoroughly before taking two shaky breaths and gathering the courage to turn the screen towards her.

_Are you ok?_ and then-

_Keen._

She stares for about as long as she showered. A hideous feeling of self-pity grips her in a vice, and she welcomes the worry like a fire licking her wounds.

And just like that, she understands fire again. And Ressler.

-

“Why?”

It shouldn’t hold as much meaning as it does. But after years of undercover husbands, surprise birthday dinners and terrifying close calls with equally terrifying murmured last words (or what they believe to be their last, at the time), diminishing this feeling is no longer an option. The anger builds inside her until it surpasses her survival instinct – all she feels is rage, all she feels is hurt, all she feels is _pick up the damn phone and explain why you want to dead when I thought you-_

“You’re a wanted criminal,” he says, pleads, and there’s a lump in his throat, “I can’t make that choice. You know I can’t.”

She presses the heel of her hand against her left eye, wonders how long they can play this game until one of them gets hurt. “You can-“

“I did.” He interrupts, and it seems like the pleading has shifted. “I put down my principles and let you go. I let you _go,_ Liz. And you went and killed someone, someone who was unarmed-“

“He was a murderer!”

“So are you!” he shouts, and the line goes silent. She is breathing heavily whilst making an effort to remain quiet, and the realization that Reddington doesn’t know this is happening breaks him a little further. She is breathing heavily, and he pretends that he isn’t. He closes his eyes and speaks softly now, regretful. “I get why you did it. But I helped you. And I didn’t know what I was offering my help for.”

“That’s why you’re mad? Because you think I tricked you into it?” the room starts spinning slowly, the ground not as steady. “Don, I know you wouldn’t have helped me if you knew. But I didn’t know either. I just- I-“ she breathes “He was there and I was getting framed. And he was there. He-“ she chokes on her words, lays a hand over her mouth, lets her head hang in what can only be described as defeat.

Don listens. His heart is pounding against his ribcage, and he hopes hers is too. He hopes it keeps her alive.

“You’re wrong, you know?” and he will regret this, he knows he will. They have never been like this, this open, this honest. But he started it, and now he intends to finish it. “I would have. Not if I thought about it long enough, I’m sure. In that moment, though, I would have.” And, “It’s you, Liz.”

The line goes dead. Elizabeth hopes nothing else will.

.

When she gets her new apartment, he helps her unpack. It’s the first time they’re alone together since he was on top of her in the middle of the woods, and his fingers itch to touch something more than old photos and dusty books. He thinks he sees her fist her hands in the same way he does to keep from reaching for her but chalks it up to a figment of his much too fertile and hopeful imagination.

“I knew you wouldn’t.” she says suddenly but nonchalantly, setting down the knives in a small drawer to her left. He looks up, surprised, but doesn’t say anything. She smiles gently. “Shoot me. I knew you wouldn’t.” and it seems so futile now, all the anger she had accumulated for him during all that time away, gone in an instant when he caught up to her and promised to protect her. She was arrested, charged with murder and pinned down, and yet relief filled her at the thought that he wanted her safe, not dead. _Safe, not dead,_ she had repeated countless times in her head as she slept on his jacket. _Safe, not dead_ as she looked at him through metal bars, hands brushing in despair to claim life.

He chuckles slightly, hands her the forks. “Are you sure about that?”

“Pretty sure.” And despite the light tone, she faces him directly, face hard. She closes the drawer, walks around the island, stands in front of him. Doesn’t say anything.

He can hear it, though. _I ran from you once, I wasn’t going to do it twice. You caught me, but you would have let me go. I couldn’t make you go through that again._

Don still nods as if he’s listening intently. He clears his voice, shoves his hands in his pockets, decides there are small windows in life where you have to jump through without a second thought. He always thinks more than twice, though, and what escapes from the turmoil inside his head is: “I would have shot you on the leg making sure to avoid any major arteries. Then I would have wrapped something over the wound while we were waiting for back-up, and, if they took too long,” he smiles, looks at her carefully. This is important. He sees the fear in her eyes and the miniscule movement of her feet as they creak on the floor, trying to put some distance between them. He thinks idly that it is far too late for that. “I would have kissed you, Keen.”

Everything is quiet for a moment. She wants to live here, on this Thursday night somewhere in February, for the rest of her life.


End file.
